The steady incorporation of Eastern European states after the end of the Cold War What issues have emerged as a result of the EU expansion eastwards? How is the EU tackling these issues?

Essay by magnolia_eUniversity, Bachelor's February 2009

download word file, 11 pages 5.0

IntroductionThe European Union grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community formed in 1950. Then the community kept growing by the slow integration of Western countries. In 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty the Community institutions were strengthened and given wider responsibilities in order to establish the European Union. The main purpose of its formulation was to unite the European countries and to create an economic stability among its members. The aim of the Union was to maintain peace after the WWII and economic growth within the community as well as to develop a strong and competitive internal market. The establishing and the early core members of the EU all had common political and economical backgrounds, which made it easier to cooperate and to form an economic and trade union. The early policies allowed the member states to trade between each other and provided free movement for their residents among the member countries.

In order to strengthen the Union, the EU started to expand its borders constantly taking more and more members in.

However, even though the expansion brought growth to the community, the EU had to face some difficulties with certain countries. These countries were the Eastern subjects of the former Soviet Union that were entitled to join the EU in 2004. Having had a different political and economical system to the West, the countries of the Eastern block brought new challenges to the EU to face. In this paper I am introducing and analysing these emerged issues and aiming at founding the answer to the following questions:What issues have emerged as a result of the EU expansion eastwards?How is the EU tackling these issues?EU and the Eastern expansionThe major goal of the European Union is to achieve political and economic unity comprising the European Nations. Two very important...